The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams

Violent Turd; 2002

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Somewhere, Kid606 is laughing. Because right now, at this very moment, some young hipster type is lounging around his parent's basement, draped in a smoking jacket, drinking his Pale Ales, stroking his soul patch, awash in the glow of some thrift-store blacklight, and not only listening to Kylie Minogue, but enjoying it. And chances are (depending on just how hip our hypothetical neo-beatnik may or may not be), he doesn't even realize it. Meanwhile, the Kid can't stop chuckling.

The West Coast's foremost electronic trickster's latest effort abandons the schizophrenic rhythms of Down with the Scene and the ramshackle noize of Don't Sweat the Technics in favor of hardcore, straight-up, knock-'em-down gabber beats, twisted jungle, and rapid-fire drum-n-bass. But no one will pay attention to any of these stylistic differences, for The Action Packed Mentallist Brings You the Fucking Jams offers a gimmick that just can't be beat.

See, in this fast-paced, ever-changing world, it turns out that imitation is no longer the sincerest form of flattery. These days, it's theft. Ever on top of the latest trends, Kid606's latest, the second release from the copyright infringing Violent Turd imprint, is comprised mostly of other people's songs. New wave classics and contemporary pop radio standbys all get tossed in the blender for this outing, meaning Eminem trainwrecks into the Buggles, the Bangles walk like an Egyptian alongside A-Ha, Missy gets her freak on with Jay-Z... and it goes on like this!

The idea's a good one, even if it isn't his. While everyone was busy arguing over how file-trading would(n't) affect record sales, the easy access it provided to both copywritten music and to easy-to-use, free-to-download software has inadvertently been forging a whole new style of computer music. Garnering the attention of big-time pundits like Spin and the Post, this online 'bootleg' revolution sees software savants mixing two disparate, copywritten pop songs into one new seething mutation. If you haven't heard Conway's "Smells Like Missy Elliot" or The Freelance Hellraiser's "Just Can't Get Enough Pills," then put this review on hold and hop right over to http://boomselection.n3.net right this minute, skippy. This stuff's brilliant, albeit in the trashiest, most lo-fi way imaginable. But never one to be left out in the cold, Kid606 set his sights on ripping off the rip-off artists. Earlier this year, he slapped together his own take on the phenomenon, a compilation of tweaked Missy Elliott tracks titled FreakBitchLickFly. It marked the first release from Violent Turd, a label whose operation he swears he has nothing to do with.

But The Action Packed Mentallist takes things a step further-- embracing hardcore, jungle and gabber techniques, and applying them to a wider array of source material than last time around. "MP3 Killed the Radio Star" applies a booty-bulging four-to-the-floor aesthetic and some bluesy harmonica to a sped-up acapella from D12's "Purple Pills" before ramming head-on into a jungle-infused version of the Buggles track its title parodies.

"Never Underestimate the Value of a Holler (Vipee-pee mix)", serves both as the obligatory take on "Get Ur Freak On," and the album's centerpiece. It starts with a glitchified Missy/Timbaland skewering set to a pulsing jungle rhythm, slows down for an expanded instrumental section, then sidetracks while the Kid fixates on the phrase, "Copywritten, so don't copy me." For a minute or so, he manipulates this phrase, finally making a beat out of the phrase "copy me" before driving into an abyss of sheer digital noise. He never quite resurfaces. Instead, he takes the next ten minutes to slice and dice the noise with bits of Eminem, Jay Z's "Big Pimpin'," A-Ha's "Take on Me" and a few other sources too ubiquitous to mention. The results are one of the strongest arguments for the strengthening of fair use laws I've ever heard-- not to mention hilarious, irritating, unsettling, and yes, pretty damned brilliant.

The rest of the album is somewhat less inspired. "Kiddy Needs a New Pair of Laptops" barely touches any of its source material. The female R&B; melodies that open the track seem almost totally unaltered, aside from some weird beats and tones thrown on top. The track ends with a take of the Bangles' "Walk Like an Egyptian" with some bulging bass and looped drums thrown in, with the whole mess run through some DSP filters. I suppose it's entertaining, but I doubt it took more than a few hours to throw together. "This Is Not My Statement" is a barbershop-quartet rendition of Radiohead's "Creep," with a whole bunch of stuttering hard drive sounds on top. Not only do the two never match, they never seem to interact, and the piece as a whole fails to reach whatever destination it had in mind. "Smack My Glitch Up" barely manipulates Kylie Minogue-- after a minute or so of DSP-garbled synthlines, there's little more than a few extra beats to distinguish it from straight-up Kylie. It sounds more like one of those no-name remixes that always pollute those $5 maxi-CD singles than it does California's patron saint of violent glitchery.

So is The Action Packed Mentalist a great conceptual 'fuck you' to the musical elitists of the world? Or is it little more than the hyperpaced, yet mostly lazy masturbation of a secret pop addict? Probably a little of each. What's brilliant is that Kid606 is far too smart to let on, even if he does offer some clues. The disc is bookended with a few minutes of minimal digital static, quiet crackles and tiny little pops on either side. Maybe it's there just to fuck with those listeners who come in expecting a jukebox-smashing rollercoaster of a ride from start to finish. But I suspect that there may be more to it than that. These chunks of noise sound, to me, like a subtle homage to the electroacoustic composers-- folks like John Oswald, Bob Ostertag and Marc Tremblay-- who were stealing from others and recontextualizing their music (also without permission) decades before anyone had ever heard the words Internet, Tigerbeat or Glitch.

Or maybe this, too, is part of the joke. Maybe Kid606 is sitting at home smirking at the idea that anyone would use words like 'conceptual' to describe this record. After all, the guy is a notorious prank-artist, and this all does seem like one big prank. While I'm eager to call him lazy for his minimal reworking of most of these songs, I can't help but wonder if this is the very punchline. Despite tossing around names like Throbbing Gristle, Steve Reich and Coil in interviews and press releases, something tells me he wouldn't make an album like this if part of him wasn't a closeted pop fanatic. Every time I get to the most mainstream, un-fucked-with parts of The Action Packed Mentallist, I can't help but think of the Kid, his face red, tears running down his cheeks, gasping for air, laughing harder now than ever.